Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Painted Chest

I bought this blanket chest about 4 years ago to serve not only as storage, but as a coffee table in the 3rd bedroom of my former home. I used that room as an office. I bought it from a catalogue, and boy was it hideola in person:

I needed a coffee table for my living room. I had been using a tea table of my mother's, but it was too small. So, since I was home today for July 4th, I got a wild hair.

The graphic is from The Graphics Fairy. First coat of paint is Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in "Old White" - applied haphazardly. Second coat is Behr's "Silver Screen" in a 50/50 wash with water. The floral trim and the groove were painted with Sherwin-Williams "White Dogwood", which is a great pink that isn't Disney Princess pink, nor does it scream "I AM PINK!" It's perfect.

I transferred the graphic using a stylus and graphite. It's outlined and painted with a Sharpie paint marker. After it dried, I sanded it lightly and then gave it another wash with the Silver Screen to soften and age it.

Both sides have the Paris wreath graphic from The Graphics Fairy. Same transfer & wash method as the top.

For the front and rear panels, I used some French/English script invoices from a scrapbooking paper pad called "Life's Journey". After they dried, I dry brushed them with the ASCP and wiped it off, then the same with the Silver Screen wash. This softened the colors of the paper and aged them a bit.